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Local Infection Preventionist Named to State-Wide Advisory Committee

July 13, 2010

BRUNSWICK, Georgia: July 13, 2010– Lynn Reynolds, infection preventionist
at the Southeast Georgia Health System Brunswick Campus, has been appointed
to serve on the Georgia Healthcare- Associated Infections (HAI) Advisory
Committee. Reynolds will serve an initial two-year term, which will run
from July 2010 through June 2012.

Reynolds, who has 18 years of experience in hospital infection prevention,
has been a participant of the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN)
since 1992. She will work with colleagues from throughout the state to
identify new ways to prevent health care-associated infections (HAIs).
The committee will also encourage Georgia hospitals to join NHSN and begin
reporting cases of HAI. “We (Southeast Georgia Health System) are
already enrolled in NHSN,” says Reynolds, who adds that reporting
HAIs in Georgia is strictly voluntary.

HAIs are infections that are not present when a patient enters the hospitals
but develop during hospitalization. Since bacteria in hospitals are often
antibiotic-resistant, HAIs can be more difficult to treat and lengthen
a patient’s hospital stay, thus contributing to increased health
care costs.

According to Reynolds, the HAI Advisory Committee will also revise and
implement the state’s HAI Prevention Plan and track how hospitals
across Georgia are doing in relation to HAIs. “Our goal is to improve
health care across the state by greatly reducing the number of HAIs,”
Reynolds says. The committee is also part of the Georgia Emergency Infections
Program, a collaboration between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC), the Georgia Division of Public Health (GDPH) and Emory University.